Germany grants BND spies powers to conduct sabotage and offensive cyber ops

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BERLIN — German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is moving to turn the country’s foreign intelligence agency into a more potent weapon to counter mounting threats from adversaries including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ministers in the chancellor’s cabinet adopted the intelligence reform on Wednesday, marking a major step forward in long-running plans to strengthen the country’s intelligence agencies by giving its spies vast new powers .

Under the proposed reform, spies working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency, the BND, could carry out acts of sabotage, conduct offensive cyber operations and pursue more aggressive espionage operations. Until now, those spies have been limited to information-gathering operations due to intentional restraints put in place after World War II to prevent a repeat of the abuses perpetrated by the Nazi spy apparatus.

But with the threat of sabotage and influence operations from Russia growing — and concerns that U.S. President Donald Trump could halt or leverage the intelligence sharing Germany heavily relies on — Merz’s government has moved to push through a historic strengthening of the country’s foreign intelligence apparatus.

“We are daily targets of espionage, sabotage, cyberattacks and covert actions by foreign powers aimed at destabilizing Germany, at harming our country and at bringing about political and social changes within our country,” Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters after the cabinet meeting in Berlin.

“Our mission is to continually adapt the state’s protective mandate to these new threat scenarios,” he added.

The reforms must still be passed by both chambers of parliament before going into effect by 2027.

Nina Warken, the chancellery chief overseeing the BND reforms, suggested Germany can no longer afford to rely so heavily on foreign allies for sophisticated intelligence operations it has long been unable conduct itself.

“So far — and this must be stated objectively — we have relied too heavily in too many security-related areas on our partners to help ensure our security,” Warken said. “In short, we are simply too dependent on the support of other countries’ intelligence services. And in too many areas, this assistance is a one-way street.”

Germany’s postwar foreign intelligence service was founded in 1956 with far more legal constraints than intelligence agencies elsewhere . Those restraints have had the side effect of making Germany particularly dependent on the U.S. for intelligence gathering.

In view of the growing threat from Russia, leading politicians now argue that it is time for Germany’s spies to be given the ability to hit back harder. That argument took on new urgency following the sighting of an explosive-laden drone at Leipzig-Halle Airport in eastern Germany last week that was found near a Ukrainian Antonov plane used to transport munitions .

Dobrindt, in remarks after the incident , stopped short of naming Russia as responsible for the drone incursion, but said that “a hybrid threat is evident” and that such perils do not originate from amateurs but are “often linked to foreign powers.” On Wednesday, he said results of an investigation into the drone incident were still pending.

Germany’s security “worsened significantly” in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to a report by the country’s domestic intelligence agency last year.

Germany’s intelligence reform would allow authorities to actively respond to hybrid threats such as the Leipzig drone incident. Measures could range from exposing those involved or destroying their property to sabotaging explosives before an attack or feeding adversaries false intelligence afterward, according to the proposed reform. Any response would have to be directly linked to the original incident and could not endanger life or physical safety.

“We are expanding the technical capabilities of the intelligence services and granting them active, operational powers,” Dobrindt said. “This is not just about enabling the services to see and hear better in the future and analyze information more quickly. Above all, it is about being able to take active measures against our attackers and adversaries.”

The BND will also face fewer data-protection restrictions, allowing it to make greater use of tools such as AI and facial recognition and to store data for longer periods of time, according to the proposed reform. The agency is also set to receive more funding in the coming years. Merz’s government increased the agency’s budget by about 26 percent to €1.51 billion this year.